FOOLING  WITH  GUNPOWDER 

REPLY  TO  THE  PIERRE  S.  DU  PONT  ARTICLE  IN  THE  APRIL,  1928,  CURRENT  HISTORY 

By  BOYD  P.  DOTY 

Attorney  World  League  Against  Alcoholism 


The  name  du  Pont  is  almost  synonymous 
with  gunpowder  and  other  high  ex- 
plosives. One  would  think  that  the  chair- 
man of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  a great 
manufacturing  concern  whose  product  is 
a dangerous  commodity  like  explosives 
would  naturally  be  of  a cautious  bent  and 
be  careful  about  “rushing  in  where  angels 
fear  to  tread.”  Not  so,  however,  with 
Pierre  S.  du  Pont.  Perhaps  a life-long 
contact  with  a dangerous  commodity  has 
made  him  reckless  in  dealing  with  other 
dangerous  subject  matter.  It  may  have 
engendered  a spirit  of  courage  and  driven 
out  fear. 

As  one  reads  Mr.  Dupont’s  article,  “The 
Eighteenth  Amendment  not  a Remedy  for 
the  Drink  Evil,”  in  the  April,  1928,  number 
of  Current  History,  one  is  somehow  driven 
to  feel  that  men  of  great  affairs  who 
usually  like  to  be  considered  hard-headed, 
cold-blooded,  clear-sighted,  logical  and 
certain,  seem  to  leave  behind  all  their 
native  and  acquired  characteristics  which 
have  made  them  so  successful  in  the  busi- 
ness and  industrial  world  when  they  enter 
upon  the  consideration  and  discussion  of 
the  drink  question.  Facts  which  must  be 
ordinarily  sifted  to  the  last  grain  in  de- 
termining the  business  course  of  a cor- 
poration may  be  utterly  ignored  or  ac- 
cepted without  question  if  liquor  is  in- 
volved. Conclusions  are  hastily  drawn. 
Generalities  are  broadly  and  frequently 
stated,  and  when  there  is  no  other  corner 
in  which  to  hide,  indefinite  and  elusive 
questions  are  resorted  to.  The  whole  his- 
tory of  the  drink  evil  and  the  attempts 
to  restrict  or  eliminate  it  are  briefly 
ignored.  Such  at  least  is  the  impression 
one  gets  in  reading  the  above  article  by 
Mr.  Pierre  S.  du  Pont. 

RECOGNIZES  EXISTENCE  OF 
“DRINK  EVIL.” 

Mr.  du  Pont  at  least  furnishes  one  com- 
mon ground  for  agreement  in  the  state- 
ment of  his  subject,  in  that  he  does 
recognize  the  fact  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  the  “drink  evil.”  Now,  that 
being  admitted,  then  the  questions  which 
naturally  arise  are,  What  are  the  causes 
producing  the  drink  evil?  What  are  the 


methods  which  have  been  tried  to  reduce 
or  eliminate  the  drink  evil?  What  is  the 
history  of  that  evil?  And  have  we  found 
the  best  remedy  to  date?  Or  is  there  some 
other  method  that  as  yet  has  not  been 
proposed  and  thoroughly  tried? 

It  may  be  interesting  to  take  up  one  by 
one  the  statements  made,  propositions  ad- 
vanced or  questions  asked  by  Mr.  du 
Pont  and  find  to  what  extent  there  is  a 
degree  of  truth  in  what  he  says,  a sound- 
ness of  logic  in  the  proposals  he  makes 
and  the  legitimate  character  of  the  ques- 
tions which  he  asks.  And  we  shall  ex- 
pect to  hold  Mr.  du  Pont  to  as  strict  ac- 
count for  what  he  says  as  if  he  were 
advising  the  Board  of  Directors  of  E.  I. 
du  Pont  de  Nemours  and  Co.  In  fact  we 
should  hold  him  to  much  stricter  account 
for  the  issues  involved  are  incomparably 
greater  than  any  issues  which  Mr.  du 
Pont  has  ever  been  called  upon  to  pass 
judgment  upon  or  rather  advise  upon. 
The  matter  about  which  he  so  smoothly 
writes  involves  the  happiness,  the  health, 
the  wealth,  the  material  and  the  spiritual 
prosperity  of  120  millions  of  people,  pos- 
sibly of  file  world,  whereas  a right  or 
wrong  policy  of  the  du  Pont  Co.  deter- 
mines only  a matter  of  dividends  for  a 
handful  of  people. 

THE  POWER  TO  PROHIBIT 

Mr.  du  Pont  launches  into  his  article 
with-  a broad  sweeping  statement  that 
during  the  past  eighty  years  it  has  never 
been  proposed  in  any  of  the  United  States 
to  “forbid  the  use  of  intoxicating  liquor 
for  beverage  purposes.”  Mr.  du  Pont 
could  just  as  truthfully  have  said  that  no 
state  prohibits  the  use  of  putrid  meat  or 
decaying  oysters  or  the  drinking  of  water 
with  typhoid  germs  in  it,  but  Mr.  du  Pont 
and  everyone  else  knows  that  the  sale  of 
any  kind  of  food  deleterious  to  health, 
whether  the  individual  to  whom  it  might 
be  sold  knows  of  its  dangerous  character 
and  is  willing  or  not  to  take  the  risk  of 
eating  it,  is  nevertheless  subject  to  the 
most  rigid  kind  of  regulatory  and  prohibi- 
tory laws.  One  may  eat  putrid  meat  if  he 
is  foolish  enough  to  do  it,  but  one  may 
not  sell  it  to  one  who  may  be  foolish 
enough  to  buy  it.  One  may  drink  typhoid- 


charged  water  from  a well,  but  the  public 
claims  the  right  to  seal  that  well  on  the 
public  highway  so  that  the  passing  throng 
may  not  be  menaced  thereby.  Even  gun- 
powder cannot  be  sold  to  any  and  all 
parties  applying  in  any  quantity  to  be 
used  for  any  and  every  purpose,  for  it  is 
recognized  that  in  gunpowder  there  are 
extraordinary  possibilities  in  which  the 
public  is  directly  concerned,  and  therefore 
its  use  even  for  such  a patriotic  purpose 
as  fireworks,  cannon  crackers,  etc.,  is 
limited  at  the  point  where  it  interferes 
with  the  safety,  peace  and  good  order 
of  the  general  public.  Gunpowder  is  a 
very  useful  commodity,  but  even  after 
having  been  lawfully  acquired  it  cannot 
be  used  for  any  and  every  purpose  which 
the  purchaser  may  conceive  of,  but  only 
for  such  purposes,  at  such  times  and  such 
places  and  under  such  regulations  and  re- 
strictions as  will  promote  the  purpose 
and  best  interests  of  society. 

Now,  intoxicating  liquor  in  which  the 
primary  constituent  is  alcohol  is  likewise 
a dangerous  commodity.  It  has  been 
so  recognized  from  the  beginning  of  time 
and  from  the  days  of  Noah  until  now. 
From  the  days  of  light  natural  wine 
which  made  Noah’s  sons  ashamed  of  their 
father  down  to  the  days  of  Pierre  S.  du 
Pont  alcohol  by  all  the  sages  of  the  pass- 
ing ages  has  been  declared  an  enemy  of 
man.  With  all  this  Mr.  du  Pont  will 
probably  agree. 

MIXED  IN  HIS  PHRASEOLOGY 
Mr.  du  Pont  says: 

“Prohibition  is  a means  of  procedure 
only;  in  it  there  is  nothing  of 
morality,  nor  is  it  really  a social  or 
political  question;  nor  is  it  the  first 
time  that  the  importance  of  a remedy 
has  been  raised  to  exceed  that  of  the 
disease  to  be  cured.” 

Now,  not  to  be  too  critical,  one  may 
nevertheless  say  that  Mr.  du  Pont  is 
slightly  mixed  in  his  phraseology.  In  the 
quotation  above  his  subject  is  prohibition 
and  “it”  in  the  following  clause  refers  to 
prohibition,  when  what  he  evidently  means 
is  the  liquor  question  is  not  a social  or 
political  question.  Now  is  it?  If  the 
statements  made  in  the  opening  para- 
graphs of  this  article  are  true,  namely, 
that  one  may  not  permit  an  open  well 
filled  with  typhoid  germs  to  be  accessible 
to  the  passing  public  or  may  not  sell 
putrid  meat  or  even  give  it  away  because 
of  the  effects  upon  either  the  ignorant  or 
the  wise  public,  and  if  one  may  not  sell 
explosives  indiscriminately  and  if  one  may 


not  use  them  indiscriminately  because  of 
the  effect  upon  the  rights  of  others,  gen- 
erally called  the  rights  of  society,  is  it  not 
quite  possible  that  there  may  be  some 
similar  reason  for  prohibiting  the  kind  of 
use  which  may  be  made  of  alcohol?  Time 
was  when  the  only  known  uses  of  alcoholic 
liquors  were  beverage  and  to  a less  ex- 
tent medicinal.  Now  there  are  many 
other  and  legitimate  uses. 

WHAT  THE  COURTS  HAVE  SAID 
Along  with  many  others,  Mr.  du  Pont 
seems  to  think  that  all  of  the  things  that 
have  been  said  about  alcoholic  beverages 
may  be  traced  to  reformers.  The  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States  long 
before  an  Anti-Saloon  League  was  even 
dreamed  about,  before  the  days  of  the 
Woman’s  Christian  Temperance  Union, 
before  the  days  of  the  Prohibition  party, 
as  far  back  as  1847,  eighty-one  years  ago, 
the  highest  judicial  tribunal  in  Christen- 
dom, in  the  famous  license  cases  (5  How. 
504)  through  Chief  Justice  Grier  said, 

“It  is  not  necessary  for  the  sake  of 
justifying  the  state  legislation  now 
under  consideration,  to  array  the  ap- 
palling statistics  of  misery,  pauperism 
and  crime,  which  have  their  origin  in 
the  USE  or  ABUSE  of  ardent  spirits.” 

A few  years  ago  the  same  court,  speak- 
ing through  Mr.  Justice  Harlan,  in  the 
case  of  Mugler  v.  Kansas,  8 Sup.  Ct.  Rep. 
297,  said: 

“We  cannot  shut  out  of  view  the 
fact,  within  the  knowledge  of  all,  that 
the  PUBLIC  HEALTH,  the  PUBLIC 
MORALS,  and  the  PUBLIC  SAFETY, 
may  be  endangered  by  the  general  use 
of  intoxicating  drinks;  nor  the  fact 
established  by  statistics  accessible  to 
every  one,  that  the  idleness,  disorder, 
pauperism,  and  crime  existing  in  the 
country,  are,  in  some  degree,  at  least, 
traceable  to  this  evil.” 

Only  a few  years  later,  in  the  case  of 
Crowley  v.  Christensen  (137  U.  S.  86,  11 
Sup.  Court  Rep.  13) , the  Supreme  Court 
left  no  doubt  about  the  status  of  the  liquor 
traffic,  declaring  that  to  the  use  of  ardent 
spirits  obtained  at  the  retail  liquor 
saloons  of  that  day  more  than  to  any 
other  source  was  attributable  the  crime 
and  misery  of  the  time,  and  then  settled 
once  and  for  all  the  broad  fundamental 
constitutional  question  that 

“There  is  no  inherent  right  in  a 
citizen  to  sell  intoxicating  liquors  hy 
retail.  It  is  not  a privilege  of  a citi- 
zen of  the  state  or  of  a citizen  of  the 
United  States.” 


2 


In  later  decisions  is  has  been  held  both 
by  state  and  federal  supreme  courts  that 
there  is  no  inherent  right  in  a citizen  to 
purchase  intoxicating  liquors  for  beverage 
purposes.  Why?  The  reasoning  of  all  of 
these  courts  is  based  upon  the  broad 
principle  that  under  the  social  compact 
upon  which  civilization  rests  in  its  organic 
relations  the  admitted  rights  of  individuals 
as  such  are  subservient  to  the  rights  of 
the  group  as  a whole.  The  illustrations 
of  the  operation  of  this  principle  are 
almost  without  number  and  so  generally 
recognized  and  accepted  that  the  matter 
is  no  longer  open  to  controversy.  Even 
one  of  Mr.  du  Pont’s  powder  houses  can- 
not be  placed  when  and  where  Mr.  du 
Pont’s  agents  or  representatives  may  most 
desire.  It  is  a commodity  with  a recog- 
nized hazard  attached  and  therefore  can- 
not be  used  for  any  and  all  purposes  at 
any  and  all  times.  The  right  of  the  in- 
dividual to  use  du  Pont  powder  is  subject 
to  the  larger,  more  comprehensive  and 
equally  well-established  right  of  the  group 
to  protect  itself. 

SOCIETY  HAS  RIGHTS 
Mr.  du  Pont  says  that  the  “drinking  of 
liquor  in  moderation  is  no  crime,  not  even 
a proved  injurious  act.”  Much  often  de- 
pends upon  one’s  definition  of  “crime.” 
The  anti-prohibitionist  is  wont  to  set  up 
straw  men  to  knock  them  down,  then 
point  to  his  valorous  deeds.  The  sale  of 
alcoholic  liquor  for  beverage  purposes  is 
not  based  upon  any  assumption  that  the 
drinking  of  liquor  either  in  moderation  or 
excess  is  a crime  per  se,  but  it  is  based 
upon  the  anti-social  character  of  the  act 
of  drinking  which  renders  the  individual 
who  drinks  unfit  to  perform  his  positive 
obligations  to  society  and  which  may 
make  him  a positive  menace  to  society. 
It  is  in  the  “may”  of  the  matter  that  the 
right  to  prohibit  the  manufacture,  sale 
and  distribution  of  alcoholic  beverages 
rests.  It  is  because  there  is  a possibility 
of  harm  coming  to  the  group  from  the 
use  of  liquor  by  an  individual  that  the 
manufacture,  sale  and  distribution  of  it  is 
prohibited.  We  do  not  wait  until  a man 
armed  to  the  teeth  runs  amuck  upon  the 
public  streets  and  actually  kills  somebody 
before  his  weapons  are  taken  away  from 
him.  We  prohibit  the  individual  from 
having  the  arms  in  his  possession  because 
of  the  possibility  of  even  a sane  man 
using  them  improperly  and  with  danger 
to  the  safety  of  the  general  public. 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  TRUTH 
But  Mr.  du  Pont  says,  “The  drinking  of 
liquor  in  moderation  is  not  a proved  in- 


jurious act.”  Injurious  to  whom  and  how 
much?  In  the  case  of  Crowley  v.  Chris- 
tensen above  cited,  the  Supreme  Court 
said: 

“It  is  urged  that  as  the  liquors  are 
used  as  a beverage  and  the  injury  fol- 
lowing them,  if  taken  in  excess,  is 
voluntarily  inflicted  and  is  confined  to 
the  party  offending,  their  sales  should 
be  without  restrictions,  the  contention 
being,  that  what  a man  shall  drink 
equally  with  what  he  shall  eat  is  not 
properly  a matter  for  legislation. 
There  is  in  this  position  an  assumption 
of  fact  which  does  not  exist — that 
when  the  liquors  are  taken  in  excess, 
the  injuries  are  confined  to  the  party 
offending.  The  injury,  it  is  true,  first 
falls  upon  him  in  his  health,  which 
the  habit  undermines;  in  his  morals, 
which  it  weakens,  and  in  self-abase- 
ment, which  it  creates.  But,  as  it 
leads  to  neglect  of  business  and  waste 
of  property  and  general  demoraliza- 
tion, it  affects  those  who  are  im- 
mediately connected  with  and  de- 
pendent upon  him.” 

But  says  Mr.  du  Pont: 

“This  refers  only  to  liquors  'taken  in  ex- 
cess.’ I said  ‘the  drinking  of  liquor  in 
moderation  is  not  a proved  injurious  act.’ ” 

Now  Mr.  du  Pont  and  his  organization 
undoubtedly  employ  highly-trained  chem- 
ists. Mr.  du  Pont  undoubtedly  has  a per- 
sonal physician  to  look  after  his  health. 
Will  Mr.  du  Pont  be  willing  to  accept  the 
scientifically  trained  judgment  of  these 
men  as  to  whether  or  not  he  is  right? 
The  success  of  the  du  Pont  Powder  Co.  is 
dependent  largely  upon  the  fact  that  it 
has  accepted  and  adapted  to  its  use  in- 
formation of  a scientific  and  of  an 
economic  character.  Is  Mr.  du  Pont  will- 
ing to  accept  scientific  truth  only  for 
business  reasons  because  it  makes  him 
dollars  and  does  he  reject  it  when  it  in- 
terferes with  his  personal  views  upon  the 
subject  of  prohibition?  Why  is  it  that 
men  refuse  to  accept  truth  because  they 
do  not  like  it?  Is  Mr.  du  Pont  not  aware 
that  scientists  of  Germany,  as  well  as  of 
England  and  America,  join  in  the  ir- 
resistible conclusions  from  myriads  of  ex- 
periments and  have  established  as  beyond 
question  the  fact  that  the  use  of  even  so- 
called  light  alcoholic  beverages  such  as 
beer  and  wine  is  a menace  to  the  human 
body  and  its  functions?  Why  will  Mr.  du 
Pont  accept  scientific  truth  in  the  busi- 
ness world  and  refuse  to  accept  it  as  ap- 
plied to  the  liquor  problem? 


3 


PROVINCIALISM  OF  MR.  du  PONT 
Mr.  du  Pont  says: 

“The  great  majority  of  our  people 
have  no  respect  for  this  kind  of  a law 
(prohibition)  even  if  they  think  good 
has  come  of  it  or  are  willing  to  observe 
it.” 

Does  Mr.  du  Pont  mean  to  say  that  all 
prohibitory  laws  acquire  this  status  in  the 
minds  of  the  American  people  or  just 
laws  prohibiting  beverage  alcohol?  If  he 
means  only  the  latter,  Mr.  du  Pont  ought 
to  get  away  from  his  Eastern  Philadelphia 
environment  long  enough  to  know  that 
there  are  many  millions  of  adults  in  the 
United  States  who  believe  in  prohibition 
just  as  conscientiously  and  have  just  as 
much  respect  for  their  theories  about  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment.  Provincialism 
is  no  longer  a distinguishing  characteris- 
tic of  the  backwoodsman.  Of  the  per- 
centage of  the  people  who  believe  in  this 
we  will  say  something  later  in  connection 
with  Mr.  du  Pont’s  other  statements  re- 
garding the  majorities  back  of  prohibition. 

Mr.  du  Pont  further  says: 

“Those  who  formerly  drank  to  ex- 
cess may  now  do  so  and,  if  the  record 
of  drunkenness  is  a criterion,  they  are 
still  active  in  their  old  time  pursuits.” 

If  any  one  is  really  interested  in  know- 
ing something  about  the  barest  facts  on 
this  particular  phase  of  Mr.  du  Pont’s  con- 
tention, one  should  read  the  companion 
article  in  the  same  number  of  Current 
History  in  which  Mr.  du  Pont’s  article  ap- 
pears, by  “Pussyfoot”  Johnson,  the  title  of 
which  is  “European  Drink  Evil  an  Object 
Lesson  to  America.”  There  are  tables 
showing  that  in  1926  the  total  number  of 
arrests  per  ten  thousand  population  in  the 
city  of  New  York  itself  was  only  14.26  as 
against  actual  convictions  for  drunkenness 
in  greater  London  of  48  per  ten  thousand,  or 
less  than  one-third,  even  assuming  that  all 
of  those  arrested  in  London  were  convicted. 
If  they  were  not,  the  ratio  would  be  larger. 
Even  Paris  shows  from  1920  to  1924,  in- 
clusive, nearly  three  times  as  many  ar- 
rests for  intoxication  per  ten  thousand  of 
population  as  were  made  in  New  York,  and 
this  is  the  capital  city  of  the  greatest  wine 
country  of  the  world.  Glasgow,  Liverpool 
and  Edinburgh  show  a much  larger  per- 
centage of  arrests  for  drunkenness  than 
does  New  York  City.  If  one  were  to  accept 
the  force  and  follow  the  logic  of  Mr.  du 
Pont’s  reasoning,  all  laws — regulatory,  ad- 
ministrative or  prohibitive — should  be  re- 
pealed because,  perforce,  people  scoff  at 
the  law  and  get  drunk  now. 


Prohibition  may  not  be  perfect.  It  may 
not  be  accepted  100  per  cent  any  more 
than  the  Ten  Commandments  are.  And 
yet,  according  to  the  tables  of  Mr.  John- 
son, or  even  those  to  be  found  in  the  1928 
World  Almanac,  published  by  the  wet  New 
York  World,  there  is  only  a small  portion 
of  the  same  number  of  drunks  in  that 
great  cosmopolitan  city  of  New  York  where 
people  really  must  be  voluntarily  observ- 
ing the  Constitution  because  there  is  no 
state  law  to  be  obeyed  and  there  is  only  a 
handful  of  federal  agents  to  enforce  the 
federal  law. 

Du  PONT  ON  THE  CONSTITUTION 
Mr.  du  Pont  says  that  after  the  adoption 
of  the  Eighteenth  Amendment  “Congress 
proceeded  to  disregard  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  just  as  the  legislatures 
had  disregarded  the  mandates  of  the  state 
Constitutions  and  expressed  wishes  of  the 
people.”  The  best,  the  only  complete  an- 
swer to  Mr.  du  Pont’s  ideas  about  the  con- 
stitutionality of  the  acts  of  Congress  is  the 
series  of  about  fifty  decisions  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court  which  has  passed 
upon  every  phase  of  the  Eighteenth 
Amendment  and  the  laws  for  its  enforce- 
ment which  the  ingenuity  of  man  could 
bring  up  for  discussion.  All  of  those  de- 
cisions have  held  both  the  - amendment 
and  the  laws  constitutional  in  every  de- 
tail. Yet  Mr.  du  Pont  says  they  are  un- 
constitutional. 

BEGGING  THE  QUESTION 
Mr.  du  Pont  is  apparently  not  above 
begging  the  question,  for  he  says: 

“Though  sale  for  all  beverage  pur- 
poses is  forbidden  by  Constitution,  this 
law  (Volstead  Act)  permits  it  if  the 
beverage  be  sacramental  in  charac- 
ter.” 

We  submit  that  this  is  a plain  begging 
of  the  question,  for  Mr.  du  Pont  to  insist 
that  the  sacramental  use  of  alcoholic  liq- 
uors is  a beverage  use. 

Then,  again,  Mr.  du  Pont  is  much  dis- 
turbed by  the  fact  that  the  Constitution 
prohibits  only  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquors 
for  beverage  purposes  but  that  “this  law 
(Volstead  act)  forbids  manufacture,  sale 
and  transportation  for  use  in  cookery.” 
Does  not  Mr.  du  Pont  know  that  denatur- 
ed alcohol  may  be  used  for  cooking  vege- 
tables if  applied  in  the  right  way;  that  is, 
as  a source  of  heat  rather  than  as  a chem- 
ical compound  of  the  food? 

The  Supreme  Court  has  sustained  all  of 
tne  regulations  incident  to  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  constitutional  amendment  be- 
cause the  Supreme  Court  says  that  Con- 


4 


gress  and  the  legislative  bodies  are  the 
judge  of  the  necessities  for  such  regula- 
tions and  that  all  that  Congress  has  thus 
far  done  is  not  a violation  of  their  powers 
under  the  Constittuion.  Mr.  du  Pont  ought 
to  write  a brief  and  submit  it  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Supreme  Court  to  show  them 
how  wrong  they  are.  For  business  advice 
we  should  be  inclined  to  consult  Mr.  du 
Pont,  but  on  questions  of  constitutionality 
of  acts  of  Congress  we  shall  still  go  to  the 
Supreme  Court. 

REVOLUTION  BUGABOO 

We  are  solemnly  warned  that  “the 
United  States  is  in  the  throes  of  revolu- 
tion.” The  cause  for  this  upheaval  seems 
to  be  that  the  fundamentals  of  govern- 
ment have  been  disregarded  in  the  ad- 
mittedly desirable  abolition  of  the  saloon 
and  the  attempt  to  stamp  out  drunken- 
ness. We  are  informed  that  the  people 
generally  are  not  “so  very  much  concerned 
with  the  question  of  drink”  but  because 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  has  been 
dragged  in  the  dust.  What  a sweet  morsel 
this  is: 

“We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evi- 
dent, that  all  men  are  created  equal, 
that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Cre- 
ator with  certain  inalienable  rights, 
that  among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness.” 

Yes,  this  is  a sweet  morsel,  unknown  in 
thousands  of  homes  before  the  Eighteenth 
Amendment  was  adopted.  Yes,  the  lives 
of  the  mother  and  the  children  were  at 
the  mercy  of  the  drink-crazed  father. 
Liberty — something  to  be  dreamed  about 
but  never  realized,  and  happiness  was  to 
be  found  only  beyond  the  Jordan. 

WHOSE  RIGHTS  ARE  IN  JEOPARDY? 
Whose  rights  are  to  be  considered  now? 
Let  us  face  this  question  frankly.  The 
right  of  the  brewer  and  the  distiller  to 
manufacture  the  liquor?  The  right  of  the 
saloonkeeper  to  sell  it?  The  right  of  the 
drinker  to  buy  it?  Or  the  right  of  society 
as  a whole  or  the  drinker’s  family  in  par- 
ticular, to  be  protected  from  the  manu- 
facture, the  sale  and  the  drinking?  Mr. 
du  Pont  thinks  only  of  one  group.  We 
have  previously  cited  the  decisions  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  to 
show  that  the  right  to  manufacture,  to 
sell  and  even  to  buy  is  not  one  of  these 
inalienable  rights  which  our  forefathers 
said  were  endowments  of  their  Creator. 
Why  do  sane  business  men  talk  such  fool- 
ishness? Why  can’t  they  think  straight 
about  prohibition  as  well  as  about  busi- 
ness? 


We  will  pass  over  Mr.  du  Pont’s  inad- 
vertence regarding  the  reason  for  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  The  tyran- 
ny of  the  majority.  What  majority?  The 
old  and  threadbare  fallacy  that  a major- 
ity of  our  people  are  forbidden  against 
their  express  wish  to  manufacture,  sell 
and  transport  beverage  liquors?  This  is 
the  first  time  we  knew  that  the  178,000  sa- 
loonkeepers and  their  bartenders  put  out 
of  business  by  the  Eighteenth  Amend- 
ment, the  1,247  brewers  and  their  em- 
ployees, and  the  507  distillers  and  their 
employees  were  a majority  of  110  millions 
of  people  in  1920,  but  Mr.  du  Pont  con- 
tends, 

“So  today  a great  number  of  our 
people,  perhaps  a majority  of  them, 
forbidden  against  their  express  wish 
to  manufacture,  sell  or  transport  bev- 
erage liquor,  are  revolting  against  the 
tyranny  of  their  fellows.” 

WHENCE  CAME  THIS  MAJORITY? 
But  perhaps  this  is  a new  crop  of  indi- 
viduals that  has  sprung  up  since  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment  was  ratified,  for 
the  Eighteenth  Amendment  must  have 
been  adopted  by  a constitutional  majority 
which  required  three -fourths  of  the  states 
to  ratify  the  Eighteenth  Amendment  be- 
fore it  could  be  put  into  the  Constitution; 
but  Americans  never  do  things  by  halves, 
and  so  New  Jersey,  yes,  New  Jersey,  be- 
came the  46th  ratifying  state  in  1922.  The 
total  number  of  votes  cast  for  the  ratifica- 
tion of  this  amendment  in  these  46  legis- 
latures was  four  times  as  many  as  the 
number  of  votes  cast  against  it.  More  than 
a score  of  the  legislative  bodies  cast  a 
unanimous  vote  for  the  amendment. 
Whence  came  all  of  this  overwhelming 
sentiment  in  state  legislatures  for  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment?  Are  Congress- 
men and  legislators  likely  to  be  so  utterly 
ignorant  of  the  wishes  of  their  con- 
stitutents  and  so  wholly  unmindful  of  the 
wishes  of  the  voters  at  home?  Something 
ought  to  be  done  about  it  and  something 
probably  would  have  been  done  about  it 
if  Mr.  du  Pont’s  contentions  were  true, 
but  each  succeeding  Congress  has  had 
larger  majorities  on  this  identical  question 
than  the  Congress  that  submitted  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment.  The  people  of 
the  United  States  have  had  five  successive 
biennial  opportunities  in  which  to  change 
the  personnel  of  Congress  if  they  were  not 
in  favor  of  what  had  already  been  done. 
Something’s  wrong  somewhere.  With 
rare  exceptions  most  of  the  states  have 
very  emphatically  approved  of  more  effec- 
tive and  stringent  regulations  by  their 
legislators  each  succeeding  year. 


Du  PONT  VS.  Du  PONT 

Mr.  du  Pont  speaks  about  the  “express 
wish”  to  manufacture,  sell  and  transport 
beverage  liquors.  Who  has  expressed 
such  a wish?  When  and  where  and  how 
did  they  express  it?  Will  Mr.  du  Pont 
put  his  hand  upon  the  facts  and  en- 
lighten the  general  public?  This  majority, 
whoever  they  are,  “are  revolting  against 
the  tyranny  of  their  fellows.”  This  would 
not  be  so  impressive  were  it  not  for  the 
fact  that  later  on  in  his  article  Mr.  du 
Pont  sagely  remarks  that  one  of  the 
groups  of  supporters  of  prohibition  is  the 
bootleggers.  Now,  bootleggers  are  those 
who  sell  beverage  liquors,  because  nobody 
but  a bootlegger  sells  beverage  liquors  to- 
day. Either  bootleggers  who  sell  the  bev- 
erage liquor  and  rumrunners  who  trans- 
port it  and  the  moonshiners  who  manu- 
facture it  are  revolting  against  the  pro- 
hibition law,  or  else  they  are  supporting  it. 
They  cannot  be  doing  both  of  these  things 
at  the  same  time.  Yet,  Mr.  du  Pont  says 
that  the  bootleggers  are  “in  active  co- 
operation with  those  who  have  made  pro- 
hibition a semi  - religious  issue.”  Just 
another  illustration  of  how  loosely  this 
business  man  thinks  when  he  thinks 
about  something  other  than  business. 

FRANKNESS  OF  MR.  Du  PONT 
CONSIDERED 

The  frankness  of  Mr.  du  Pont  must  be 
commended  in  his  admission  that  during 
the  first  year  under  national  prohibition 
the  number  of  arrests  for  drunkenness 
fell  to  only  44  per  cent  of  the  1914  num- 
ber. If  Mr.  du  Pont,  however,  had  made 
a comparison  of  the  number  of  arrests  in 
the  last  year  preceding  the  beginning  of 
the  war-time  prohibition  restrictions  in 
1918,  the  per  cent  would  have  been  much 
below  44  per  cent,  usually  fixed  at  about 
25  per  cent.  Mr.  du  Pont  naively  says, 
“Gradually  as  various  sources  of 
liquor  supply  have  increased  in  the 
United  States,  arrests  for  drunkenness 
have  also  increased,  until  the  total  in 
recording  cities  is  now  equal  to  that  in 
pre-war  times.” 

Mr.  du  Pont  probably  says  more  than  he 
intended  to  say,  for  what  he  really  says 
is  that  the  more  liquor  there  is  available 
the  more  drunks  there  will  be,  and  he  ad- 
mits that  drunkenness  is  an  evil,  for  the 
title  of  his  article  is  concerned  with  “a 
Remedy  for  the  Drink  Evil.”  Now,  if 
prohibition  could  reduce  the  number  of 
arrests  for  drunkenness  in  1920  to  25  per 
cent  of  what  they  were  in  1917,  then  pro- 
hibition enforced  would  clearly  be  a dis- 


tinct boon  to  society  as  a whole.  And 
after  all  we  can  ignore  Mr.  du  Pont’s 
claim  of  the  majority  who  wish  to  manu- 
facture, sell  and  transport  beverage 
liquors,  for  they  are  the  commercial  class 
who  seek  to  profit  by  violating  the  law 
and  who,  common  sense  tells  us,  are  in  a 
mere  fractional  minority  of  the  nearly  120 
millions  of  people  of  the  United  States. 

DRUNKENNESS  CASES  DECREASING 

But  Mr.  du  Pont  says  that  in  these  re- 
cording cities  the  number  of  arrests  for 
drunkenness  is  now  as  large  as  it  was  in 
pre-war  times.  If  one  were  to  make  the 
comparison  between  1914  and  1926,  let  us 
go  to  the  wet  New  York  World  Almanac, 
page  506,  and  we  will  find  that  in  New 
York  City,  according  to  the  official  figures 
furnished  by  the  Police  Commissioner  in 
1914,  there  were  23,122  arrests  for  intoxica- 
tion, while  in  1920  there  were  only  7,804. 
Evidently  those  who  “wish  to  manufac- 
ture, sell  and  transport  beverage  liquors” 
and  therefore  “are  revolting  against  the 
tyranny  of  their  fellows”  had  not  yet 
gotten  into  action  in  1920,  but  little  by 
little  they  established  their  lines  of  com- 
munication and  discovered  year  by  year, 
a little  better  each  time,  how  to  evade  the 
law,  defy  the  Constitution  and  break  down 
the  morale  of  the  offiicials  with  whom 
they  came  in  contact.  But  it  is  quite  sig- 
nificant that  the  peak  of  this  increase 
was  reached  in  1923,  since  which  time  it 
has  decreased  to  12,330  or  just  a little 
more  than  one-half  the  number  of  ar- 
rests in  1914. 

Yes,  and  there  is  another  thing  to  keep 
in  mind,  that  in  the  twelve  years  from 
1914  to  1926  the  population  of  New  York 
increased  almost  750,000,  three-fourths  of 
a million  people,  or  about  12  per  cent,  but 
the  number  of  arrests  for  drunkenness  in 
1926  was  only  a little  more  than  one-half 
of  the  number  of  arrests  for  the  same 
cause  in  1914. 

Moreover,  the  additional  fact  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  while  under  the  state 
law  of  New  York  the  manufacture,  sale 
and  transportation  of  alcoholic  liquor  is 
not  forbidden,  drunkenness  is  still  a 
crime  and  that  the  degree  of  drunkenness 
calling  for  arrest  is  much  less  today  than 
it  was  ten  years  ago,  yet  in  spite  of  these 
circumstances  the  decrease  is  very  re- 
markable. 

AN  UNFORTUNATE  SELECTION 

Mr.  du  Pont  is  rather  unfortunate  in 
his  selection  of  England,  or  in  fact  any 
other  European  country,  as  a basis  of 
comparison  as  indicated  in  the  tables  of 


6 


Mr.  Johnson’s  article  above  referred  to. 
American  cities  with  their  newly  met  and 
widely  diverse  nationalities,  subjected  in  a 
peculiar  sense  and  to  an  unusual  degree 
to  the  political  influence  of  their  new  and 
adopted  country,  nevertheless  are  leaving 
their  European  sister  cities  behind  in 
their  advance  toward  sobriety.  This  is  so 
apparent  that  further  attention  need  not 
be  given  to  this  phase  of  Mr.  du  Pont’s 
contention. 

Mr.  du  Pont  is  mildly  enthusiastic  over 
the  fact  that  England  has  taught  us  a 
lesson  by  “reducing  the  consumption  of 
alcohol  to  one-half  of  what  it  was  before 
the  world  war.”  I have  before  me  the 
April,  1928,  number  of  the  Alliance  News, 
which  is  the  official  organ  of  the  United 
Kingdom  Alliance,  an  English  temperance 
publication,  containing  an  elaborate  dis- 
play of  detailed  statistics  with  tables  and 
charts  enabling  one  to  get  at  almost  any 
phase  of  the  English  drinking  situation. 
We  pass  on  a few  facts  which  may  throw 
some  light  on  this  alleged  decrease.  The 
fact  of  the  matter  is  that  the  high  peak 
year  of  consumption  of  beer,  wine  and 
spirits  in  the  United  Kingdom  was  reached 
in  1874  and  ’75.  From  that  period  wine 
has  shown  a more  or  less  consistent,  very 
gradual  decrease  from  approximately  55 
gallons  per  capita  per  year  to  less  than  30 
gallons  per  capita  in  1917,  then  a sudden 
rise  to  40  gallons  in  the  years  1918  and 
T9,  and  some  variation  to  1927  where  the 
consumption  is  about  38  gallons.  The 
consumption  of  spirits  has  declined  from 
the  end  of  1875,  when  it  reached  the  high 
peak  of  approximately  128  gallons  per 
capita,  to  the  next  high  peak  in  1899  and 
1900  when  it  stood  at  about  111  gallons, 
with  a rapid  decrease  in  1915  when  it 
stood  at  approximately  75  gallons,  with  a 
sudden  drop  during  the  war  to  the  low 
point  in  1918  of  approximately  34  gallons. 
In  1919  and  ’20  it  reached  the  level  of  ap- 
proximately 48  gallons  per  capita  and  has 
gradually  declined  to  approximately  29 
gallons  per  capita  in  1927.  There  were 
manifest  reasons  for  a sharp  decline  in 
England  in  the  consumption  of  all  liquors 
from  1914  on.  Beer  especially  from  its 
high  peak  of  1874  and  ’75  fell  and  rose 
again  to  a lower  peak  in  1899  and  1900  and 
then  fell  off  very  rapidly  to  the  beginning 
of  the  World  War,  at  which  time  the  con- 
sumption fell  off  from  27  standard  gallons 
per  capita  to  10  gallons  in  1918.  Consump- 
tion more  than  doubled  between  1918  and 
1920,  jumping  from  10  to  20 Y2  gallons.  The 
1927  consumption  was  approximately  17 
gallons.  The  figures  above  given  for  wine 
are  based  upon  wine  gallons,  that  of  spir- 


its upon  proof  gallons.  Incidentally  this 
means  that  with  the  dilution  of  these  spir- 
its to  their  commercial  strength  the  quan- 
tity of  spirits  purchased  and  drunk  was 
much  larger.  The  beer  measure  is  the 
standard  gallon. 

Compare  the  per  capita  consumption  of 
wine,  spirits  and  beer  in  the  United  States 
for  any  period  prior  to  national  prohibi- 
tion. 

Now,  in  the  face  of  these  facts  what  be- 
comes of  Mr.  du  Pont’s  claim  that  En- 
gland has  reduced  to  one-half  its  con- 
sumption of  alcoholic  beverages  prior  to 
the  World  War?  The  fluctuation  previous 
to  1914  varies  according  to  the  material 
prosperity  and  the  purchasing  power  of 
the  drinking  public.  The  high  peak  years 
1874-’75,  1899-1900,  and  1913  were  years  of 
industrial  prosperity,  but  each  succeeding 
high  peak  period  was  lower  than  for  the 
preceding  high  peak  period.  Mr.  du  Pont 
must  be  perfectly  well  aware  of  the  fact 
that  England  has  been  passing  through  a 
severely  abnormal  industrial  and  economic 
period  since  the  war.  This  had  its  imme- 
diate effect  upon  the  consumption  of  liq- 
uors throughout  Great  Britain. 

THE  REVENUE  LURE 

Mr.  du  Pont  is  attracted  by  the  revenue- 
producing  features  of  the  English  revenue 
system.  This  is  a natural  viewpoint  for 
Mr.  du  Pont  to  take.  He  reckons  that 
“with  a population  of  42  million  this 
means  3,200,000  pounds  (or  $16,000,000) 
each  year  from  one  million  inhabitants.” 
In  other  words,  $16.00  per  capita.  Now, 
what  would  this  mean  for  the  United 
States?  It  means  that  if  we  were  paying 
revenue  at  the  same  rate  on  intoxicating 
beverages  under  an  internal  revenue  sys- 
tem, our  118  millions  of  people  would  have 
paid  in  liquor  tax  alone  $1,888,000,000.  Mr. 
du  Pont,  evidently  basing  his  figures  upon 
a smaller  population,  says  that  the  return 
would  be  $1,850,000,000  a year.  From  whom 
would  this  come?  It  would  come  from  the 
drinkers.  It  would  come  from  the  families 
represented  in  1926  in  the  46,762,240  sav- 
ings depositors  of  this  country.  It  would 
mean  that  thousands  of  families  would 
have  gone  without  their  flivvers.  It  would 
mean,  aside  from  the  evil  effects  of  the 
drink  itself  promiscuously  distributed  and 
consumed,  the  decrease  of  manpower, 
which  would  put  us  back  on  a level  with 
the  drinking  countries  of  Europe.  Mr.  du 
Pont  ought  not  to  forget  that  fact.  Lloyd 
George  and  other  British  statesmen  have 
sounded  the  warning  to  their  fellow  coun- 
trymen that  “England  drunk  cannot  com- 


7 


pete  with  America  sober.”  We  cannot 
have  our  pie  and  eat  it.  We  cannot  have 
our  prosperity  in  the  forms  of  multiplied 
comfortable  homes  for  the  common  peo- 
ple, automobiles,  radios  and  telephones  for 
everybody,  building  and  loan  and  savings 
bank  deposits  beyond  parallel  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world,  and  at  the  same  time 
raise  nearly  two  billions  of  dollars  of  rev- 
enue by  taxing  the  sale  of  a commodity 
the  consumption  of  which  would  not  only 
decrease  tremendously  our  producing  pow- 
er but  also  divert  the  fruits  of  that  pro- 
ducing power  from  automobiles,  savings 
banks,  building  and  loan  companies  and 
the  education  of  our  young  people  to  the 
coffers  of  the  brewers  and  distillers  and 
saloonkeepers  who  formerly  waxed  fat  in 
America.  Why  is  it  that  a man  who  thinks 
straight  on  his  own  business  lines  can’t 
think  straight  when  he  deals  with  the  eco- 
nomic issues  involved  in  the  drink  ques- 
tion? 

THE  CRUX  OF  THE  WHOLE  MATTER 
But  perhaps  Mr.  du  Pont  is  thinking 
straighter  than  we  suppose.  Perhaps  the 
answer,  however,  may  be  found  in  the  fol- 
lowing remarkable  statement  by  Mr.  du 
Pont.  We  will  let  him  speak  for  himself : 

‘‘As  our  average  income  tax  collec- 
tions for  the  years  1923-1926  from  in- 
dividuals and  corporations  were  $1,- 
817,000,000,  resulting  in  a considerable 
surplus,  it  is  fair  to  say  that  the  Brit- 
ish liquor  policy  applied  in  the  United 
States  would  permit  of  the  total  abo- 
lition of  the  income  tax  both  personal 
and  corporate.  Or,  this  liquor  tax 
would  be  sufficient  to  pay  off  the  en- 
tire debt  of  the  United  States,  interest 
and  principal,  in  a little  less  than  fif- 
teen years.” 

DO  WE  NOT  HAVE  HERE  THE  GIST 

OF  MR.  Du  PONT’S  THINKING?  He, 
forsooth,  would  like  to  be  relieved  of  the 
payment  of  his  income  tax  and  take  it  out 
of  the  drinkers’  homes  of  America.  Such 
drinking  as  is  being  done  today  is  admit- 
tedly being  done  largely  by  the  rich.  The 
actual  economic  loss  to  the  world  in  gen- 
eral caused  by  those  who  drink  today  is 
not  so  great  as  it  would  be  if  taken  from 
the  earnings  of  the  man  who  has  only 
sufficient  for  the  necessities  and  the  com- 
forts and  a few  of  the  minor  luxuries  for 
himself  and  family.  Economically  con- 
sidered, what  does  it  matter  if  Mr.  du 

THE  AMERICAN  ISSUE  PUBLISHI 


Pont‘s  income  tax-paying  friends  with  an 
income  of  a million  or  so  should  spend 
ten,  twenty-five  or  fifty  thousand  a year 
for  booze  and  on  that  should  pay  a tax 
levied  by  the  government?  That  would  be 
a mere  bagatelle  as  compared  with  release 
from  the  payment  of  income  tax  on  mil- 
lion dollar  incomes,  and  Mr.  du  Pont’s  in- 
come tax-paying  friends  for  whom  he  ap- 
parently holds  a brief  would  gladly  ex- 
change position  with  their  English  tax- 
paying  brothers.  Do  we  not  have  here  the 
crux  of  the  whole  matter?  This  is  not  the 
first  time  that  such  an  argument  has  been 
advanced.  An  employer  of  labor  about  a 
year  ago  advanced  the  same  theory  that 
if  we  were  to  place  Great  Britain’s  tax 
upon  and  permit  the  sale  of  liquor,  the 
employees  of  the  factories  could  pay  the 
taxes  now  being  paid  by  the  employer. 
This  is  indeed  a sordid  argument  and  does 
not  belong  to  the  twentieth  century,  but 
it  is  the  plain  unvarnished  argument  of 
this  chairman  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of 
a great  corporation. 

No  wonder  that  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
producing  class  of  America  do  not  respond 
to  that  kind  of  an  argument.  No  wonder 
that  this  numerically  large  group  has  seen 
and  appreciates  the  value  of  the  prohibi- 
tion policy  and  has  at  each  succeeding 
election  registered  their  approval  of  the 
men  who  have  given  America  a chance  to 
accept  prohibition  and  who  also  endorse 
those  men  who  stand  for  its  rigid  appli- 
cation and  enforcement. 

No,  Mr.  du  Pont,  you  cannot  fool  the 
people  of  America.  That  kind  of  finan- 
cial, economic  sophistry  will  not  find  its 
way  into  their  pocketbooks.  To  use  an 
old  American  phrase,  the  average  Ameri- 
can head  of  the  family  and  the  average 
co-partner  in  that  headship,  recently  en- 
dowed with  suffrage,  know  very  well 
“which  side  of  their  bread  is  buttered.” 
No,  no,  Mr.  du  Pont,  you  will  have  to  fig- 
ure some  other  way  to  get  rid  of  paying 
income  tax  without  unloading  it  on  a new 
crop  of  drinkers  in  America.  Is  this  the 
reason  why  the  president  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railway  Company  and  other  rep- 
resentatives of  great  corporate  interests 
with  stupendous  incomes  often  avowing 
total  abstinence  as  the  rule  of  their  own 
lives  are  yet  insisting  upon  the  right  of 
the  poor  man  to  drink  good  liquor — if 
only  he  will  pay  in  that  way  the  expenses 
of  government? 

CO.,  WESTERVILLE.  OHIO.  U S A. 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


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